59 Catalina

[idrivejunk]

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[idrivejunk]

Yesterday I stitched up a footwell. Needs work to level it back out because I did the corners with it on the table. The seatbelt mount cover doesn't fit anymore either. I want to lightly english wheel these welds a little too, to straighten a bit. I'll do more fitting as I go on the other side and it will go differently. So many lessons! Fitting rectangular tubing is harder than it looks.



Today I felt like more got done. I narrowed the hump floor frame 4" and made dogleg shaped trunk pan braces to follow the hump rails and tie body mounts together. I have trimmed outer curved sections of the front flange of the stock body tail crossmember at the new mount area to accept a tube laid along the front of the crossmember which will connect the ends of the doglegs. My mental picture has cracked the egg so to speak.

Gave the chassis guy another opportunity to request room for stuff, and my rough plan is a go. Plugging all the pans in this car will be a treat. Using stock tank braces is tempting and if I cut one loose and it fits in the blast cabinet, I think I would prefer them since they are not bad and the car still fits them. They are holding themselves in the original place in the pic, and they have been blasted and epoxied on the underside. I made a simple front bracket to weld them there already but could also easily fit tubing there instead. We are planning some sort of fuel pump access hatch. Reckon I'll ask boss whether he would rather use a stocker kinda tank with straps and long bolts or not or what. Should end up with a nifty car show supplies compartment over the axle, perhaps even a pass-through. Speaker enclosures would be a good thing to incorporate, hmm.

[idrivejunk]

[kb426]

I remember looking at the 1st pics and thinking at 1st glance, that doesn't look so bad. Color me stupid. Large cars = lots of work. No way around it if it's going to be good. Do you expect this car to be better than the Biscayne or very similar? Try to control your Pontiac bias.

[idrivejunk]

I remember looking at the 1st pics and thinking at 1st glance, that doesn't look so bad. Color me stupid. Large cars = lots of work. No way around it if it's going to be good. Do you expect this car to be better than the Biscayne or very similar? Try to control your Pontiac bias.

I didn't think it looked that bad at first either. Blasting was mighty revealing. Kinda like actual cats, once you hose em down, they all look about the same.

I don't think one has to look far to see the Catalina as the superior build just based on parts bought. Aftermarket chassis and full custom interior and you can hit stop because the point is made. Better is such a subjective term though. Today I saw the Biscayne go past my stall and I bolted to watch it go down the street. A tire rubbed just going out the driveway but man... I am not wild about these particular years of cars but I'm telling ya that jewel draws the eye and keeps it. To me, both will probably come across as muscled up classics done nicely.

The tangible difference is that the Cat could be called upon for track day duty with more confidence having modern suspension. Its no contest, I would declare Pontiac winner here. Whether that was the question or not I do not know. As far as the bodywork goes, neither car has the best I can do on it. Both have the neatest and most complete rust repairs I can provide without destroying the owner's ability to pay. It is hard to tell when to quit butting and stitching and start lapping and plugging but my aim to please is improving and both cars got solid work where it counts. If you're like me, the better car would be determined in legit classic style by lining them up outside the city limits. The two finished cars would make a helluva 1-2 punch X-frame feature article.

The Catalina's bizarre overall look just has such enormous potential as a high-end show car and kustom body mod showcase, that it will be kinda sad to see it dressed like the Biscayne, in plain clothes as a fuzzy dice car.  :?  When I finish with it, thats where I'd love to start customizing. Zero mod ideas not on the rendering have been considered, and bumper exhaust exits seem to be the only proposition being taken seriously. Oh, thats right, you guys have not seen the Pfaff renderings. I don't know if its OK to post those. Did you guys want to see them? There was one in the blue 67 F100 article and this car got front and rear views done. I began to create my own to show ideas but thats spitting into the wind.

Sorry so many words, just trying to cover the angles on which is better. If you try to answer the question "Which was worse?", knowing what you know, you'll understand the predicament.

[idrivejunk]

[idrivejunk]

I have the gas tank braces in and am tying into the trunk drop brace at front, behind the right wheelwell. Ready to drop a mount nut pocket of some sort into the floor framework intersection as shown. As you see I am down to splicing tubing scraps now. Could use another stick or two but its raining. Anyway the way it works out, to be level there behind the wheel I had to fork the tubing 2" back from the end and slip it over the available attaching point which is two layers. On the bottom, I squeezed the fork at the end so from the bottom you see it tapered back 2". You shall see but just the top is welded for now.

In this first pic, you are looking at the top of that wheelwell. See the rusty flat area facing you? With the epoxy drip and two welds on it's left end. Thats where I'll connect to the roof rails but can't go straight across without cutting into speaker room. Making this up as I go but not without much mental culling of ideas as I sneak up on solutions.    By the way yes, with an EFI pump in tank, the tank will probably have to stick up between the braces for it at the front. Because the car is so low.

[rumrumm]

Wow! I'm glad someone with deeper pockets than me is paying the labor bill on this one! All this fabrication is pretty intense.

[idrivejunk]

Wow! I'm glad someone with deeper pockets than me is paying the labor bill on this one! All this fabrication is pretty intense.

He was in Monday, first visit. Didn't have much to say, just one question for me:

How long on the rest of the floor stuff? :?:

I could see being done in a month (with floor and probably tub stuff) IF we had seats, wheels, and tires and gas tank already.

Thats when I took the driveshaft tunnel off and sat the driver's seat pan in place with the steering column location marked and explained the conflict.

The response was "We can blame that (bucket seat choice) on ******."

****** is not a co-worker or the boss, or me. So I wonder. If they drag feet long enough I'll weld pans in as-is and stand by with a box of tissues. I know some buckets are on the way to the interior guy for approval.

So... I'm just painting my own picture with diligence and staying off toes. But if we are talking intense, lets talk knees and elbows. Whew, trunks hurt. I'm down to skipping supper now, too. Just so you guys know, the owner never batted an eye or flinched or even changed facial expression really. Took a pic inside the trunk. I questioned him as to whether this particular car was sentimental. No, it was bought for this but his Dad had one back when he began driving. He mentioned the 389 in this one and made a slight WOT tri-power noise and gesture so he is probably alright. I finally managed to get a big smirk when I mentioned the crew wanting to install flamethrowers in the backup lights. I believe our hero is not unlike that of the Biscayne in that somehow they came to us already convinced we were the right place. The reason they stay to the finish is they don't get BS'ed and we actually do finish. But it has to hurt! If everybody hurts a little, it works. Otherwise you get the way too common paint jail scenario.

Quittin time snuck up on me today, work area was a thrash zone and not much progress to show so I'll play pic hooky this evening.

[idrivejunk]

A 7/16" nut drops into these pockets and won't spin. I am going to put holes in the pan over them. At the tail member I just put bolt holes at the inside corners and will move the mount to where the bolt centers the frame rail.









Ready to slide under it and mark for weld prep now. I also got the trans tunnel half welded so far.

[kb426]

Good statement about the owner. I would think he has researched plenty of shops before committing on a project of this scope.

[idrivejunk]

The typical internet reaction to the scope is that of disbelief and assumed ignorance, so word of mouth among the elite must be what keeps them coming. I don't know. But this is a prosperous area apparently, and some guys are on a scale that eludes understanding by guys like you and I, plain and simple. It looks to me like those monetarily successful or fortunate guys found us and are glad of it. Still blows me away too, though. Case and point: When the Biscayne owner picks his car up, he is dropping off a 51 Ford pickup for a full build including an AME frame. Think about that. Alongside that display of wealth are at least two more jobs getting the same treatment. So... what do we call this new thing that isn't rodding? Buying? Checkbooking? I realized years ago that I will never understand. Heck I've never understood how new vehicles get sold because I just can't imagine how sufficient income is generated to buy them. Same thing here, just different scale.The dudes are still just dudes though. Playing with cars the best they know how.

[idrivejunk]

Today, half day, I finished welding in the trans tunnel then made sure the pans still fit. Got started on the last pair of body mounts, at the back seat.

[idrivejunk]

Here is progress from today on that RH back seat body mount. Did something else Monday, stand by for that.

I needed to establish where the wheelwell will be, and to gain some seat bottom room. The roughed in configuration got whacked at the point where it passes the front of the well, headed forward. So I could move the front end of the tube outward past the frame rail and down for seat room. Its whacky alright. So far the piece looks like this, from the bottom...



Its a work in progmess, added strength dead ahead. The angled piece farthest to the right, at the joint, is thick stuff and connects to all 3 tubes.



The other side will be as symmetrical as possible. Still kinda rocket science for IDJ here but I am learning a bunch the way I like to learn it. Definitely gonna need more and better tools if I am doing more floor fabs!

[idrivejunk]

Monday I fussed over leveling, squaring, centering the body on the frame. The right rocker to roof rail distance is off a half inch from the whole rest of the car and that will continue to be a thorn in my paw as I walk the rest of this journey. I chose to trust the whole rest of the car's dimensions and let the rocker slide. Roof, quarters, firewall, floors, all sit just like I want.

This was how I centered the firewall and body mount pockets:



I then finally welded my old trusty tunnel brace in. I set it up for either a mount or just cushion there. This may also serve as an inner seatbelt mount point as well. The whole floor frame just keeps growing stronger with each thing, and everything seems to have stayed put as far as the body flexing goes.



In this, you can see theres also a pad with room for smaller body cushions under the ends of the forward tunnel support too. Yes, there is going to be a good bit of welding to do after I lift the body off.



You didn't think you was gonna look at all that and not see one GP, didya?